Fans of Rent might want to avert their ears: L.A. actress, comedian and sci-fi geek Bloom has taken that play’s “525,600 minutes” anthem and belted it out in the language of Star Trek’s warrior race. Worf would be proud.

9. AMANDA PALMER & THE FLAMING LIPS

“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”

Because the rapidly proliferating online links to this ominous, slo-mo cover of the Roberta Flack hit and Peggy Seeger original all lead to a video featuring a naked Palmer writhing about in a bathtub, we’re not going to include a pointer here. Suffice to say, if you and Google are successful in locating an audio-only version, you’ll get an earful of what the song might have sounded like had it been performed in a karaoke bar on a drizzly Tuesday night in Twin Peaks.

On which two of the most closely watched acts from the New Wave of British Folk team up to surprisingly potent effect. The three sisters who comprise The Staves are entirely capable of conveying longing and melancholy all on their own. Add in Henson, a painfully fragile young singer-songwriter from the suburbs of London, and you half expect them to reduce each other to tears before the final chorus is through. (From Dead & Born & Grown, out Oct. 22)

Granted, this seems a little like hiring Channing Tatum to remake a Colin Farrell movie, but there’s something to be said for setting a slightly younger band loose upon this overly familiar Deep Purple original. The result can be summed up in three words: faster, higher, louder. (From Re-machined)

If Welch really does follow through on her intention to put Florence + The Machine into mothballs for a year, this would be a hell of a way to disappear. Scottish DJ Harris has already been featured on massive singles by Dizzee Rascal (“Dance Wiv Me”) and Rihanna (“We Found Love”), and while this might not scale the heights of the latter, it benefits from it: The style and tempo are similar, but the hooks — both melodic and rhythmic — feel like they’ve been distilled down into concentrated form.

Yes, it’s spelled with two “y”s, but you get the feeling the name is less an affectation than a typo this L.A. duo of ex-OK Go bassist Tim Nordwind and vocalist Drea Smith from Chicago electro/New Wave act He Say She Say just couldn’t be bothered fixing. Thick with resignation, this effortlessly melodic tune is spirited enough to make you want to hit the dance floor but sufficiently melancholy that you’ll probably regret it once you’re out there. (From Human Beings)

Hardcore fans have long despaired over ever hearing a proper follow-up to this Aussie band’s dazzling 2000 debut, Since I Left You, and the surprise appearance of this piece of music probably won’t do much to temper that sentiment. Less a song than a spoken-word reading with musical accompaniment, if features Silver Jews frontman David Berman reading a beautiful poem that veers between whimsy (“It was like I was stretching my arm through the cat door to heaven) and desolation (“When the seatbelt’s the only hug you’ve felt in weeks”) without skipping a beat. The full lyrics are here. The words-with-music are here.

North Carolina rapper Marlanna Evans has never been shy about professing her abiding admiration for ex-Fugees singer Lauryn Hill, and some might argue that this single is really an extended mash note. Evans, though, is way too gifted and ambitious to settle for mimicry. With a major assist from producer 9th Wonder, whose resume includes Jay-Z, Erykah Badu and Chris Brown, she pays homage while also firmly establishing her own identity. She’s even confident enough to drop in a couple of references to “hee-bee-jee-bees,” an uncoded hat tip to The Fugees’ “Ready or Not.” (From The Idea of Beautiful)

This is an unexpected byproduct of pop music’s new ecology. In exchange for a fan’s pledge to help fund her album, London’s Saint Saviour, a.k.a. Becky Jones, promised to cover said fan’s favourite song. What Jones does with the most repurposed number in David Bowie’s catalogue, however, sounds like anything but a mercantile transaction. From the “beep beep” nod to Bowie’s “Fashion” to the driving bassline that evokes Bowie’s cover of Scott Walker’s “Nite Flights,” Jones relentlessly pursues a dual goal: to amplify the original while reminding us of the ironic distance denoted by the quotation marks around the title.

Because it isn’t what if first appears to be, this already bizarre video ends up being twice as loony as you’d expect. The visuals depict California eccentric Joe Rinaudo giving a manic demonstration of the Fotoplayer, a sort of tricked-out player piano used to make music — much of it of the ding-ding, glug-glug, a-WOO-ga variety — to accompany silent films. The audio, meanwhile, consists of a bells-and-whistles, oompah arrangement of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by one Fabien Labonde. Together, it approximates what GN’R might sound like if Slash had been replaced by Spike Jones.

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